Steam is definitely DRM. You have to create an account and any games you buy are tied to that account. That = DRM. Anything used to restrict usage of a game, whether it be a CD-key, a disc check, online activations, limited installs or an account requirement, is DRM.

Ten years ago, PC gamers scoffed at the idea of digital distribution and rejected the notion that physical would ever go away. Lo and behold, digital distribution now accounts for the vast majority of PC game sales.

Because a) PC games haven't had a retail presence in eons and b) there are a bunch of digital outlets. Who wants everything to be DLC when PSN and XBL and their shitty pricing are the only storefronts?

Like I said, console-makers need to provide incentives for consumers to switch over to digital. One of those incentives is lower prices like we see on PC. Steam has proven that great sales can significantly increase profits. There's no reason why console-makers can't convince publishers to do the same on their respective platforms. Publishers would love to go all-digital, as it would save them a ton of money on manufacturing and distribution, generate more profit per sale and create a potentially infinite shelf life for every game.

If console-makers put some effort into it, I wouldn't be surprised at all if consoles were all digital within ten years. We've already seen music go digital and movies and television are quickly following suit. The future will be all digital. It's only a matter of time.

Kristian Joensen wrote on Jan 2, 2014, 19:55:The existence of naive people is nothing new. Oh well. It is hilarious to me how anyone can get anything else out of that Twitter conversation. Every mention of GOG by somebody (that was not ignored) being followed up by a mention of Steam as if GOG doesn't even exist. The conclusion is obvious.

Of course! If they say something about GOG, and it never materializes, people like you will flip out. But, when they don't say anything, you're flipping out anyway.

The worst part is you call others naive. Fuck that. You're entitled and a nuisance.

Remember when we used to have .plan files? Do you know why that stopped? Because of people like you. You call yourself a fan, but you ruin everything for everyone. You overanalyze and whine and complain. When someone mentions something and you don't like it you address them directly and complain. When someone doesn't mention something you want to hear you address them directly and complain. You call them liars. You call everyone else naive.

Do you understand how software development works? Some things work. Some things don't work. With games, some things are fun. Some things aren't. With .plans, devs used to discuss things early in development. Sometimes they ended up not working and got cut. Sometimes they ended up not fun and got cut. But people like you threw shitfits and, guess what, devs stopped talking to the community because it became a no-win situation.

All this PR speak you claim to be so knowledgeable about is a direct result of people like you being shitty.Why do we know nothing about Half Life 3? Because of "fans" like you.

You don't even realize how shitty you are, do you? You think you're a good, knowledgeable, intelligent fan. But you aren't a fan. You treat the people making you the things that entertain you like the enemy, and because of that all the rest of us are kept in the dark.

All of this coming from someone claiming I overanalyze? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

You have no idea of what type of gamer and person I am.

"You treat the people making you the things that entertain you like the enemy,"

So all the good things I have said about GOG, cd Project, Valve, Devolver Digital, Human Head, Remedy, id Software and others(Even including Bethesda/ZeniMax on some points) is treating them like enemies? HAHAHAHAH. You are very funny.

No. Tweeting Pete Hines and calling him a liar is treating him like the enemy. Coming on this board and calling them liars is treating them like the enemy.

Just shut up and play games you like. Don't play games you don't like. Stop being hypercritical of shit people fucking say or do not say. Goddammit, when's the last time we had a green icon around here? We never get them. Do you know why? Because stupid fucking people jump all over everything they say and chase them out of here.

There's a wall between us and game devs. You are the reason.

To be fair, publishers are the real reason. They are overly secretive about everything and want to have complete control over all information pertaining to all their games. Allowing devs to speak openly to customers undermines that goal.

Mad Max RW wrote on Jan 2, 2014, 18:01:Digital console sales are the lowest at only about 12%. More people (about 23%) still buy used. It's even lower in Europe. If you think 100% of games will be exclusively available through digital distribution in even the next ten years you are hopelessly misinformed.

Ten years ago, PC gamers scoffed at the idea of digital distribution and rejected the notion that physical would ever go away. Lo and behold, digital distribution now accounts for the vast majority of PC game sales.

If console-makers provide sufficient incentive for people to adopt digital over physical, the same transition will inevitably occur in the console market.

javajeff wrote on Jan 1, 2014, 20:48:Steam is DRM. This means your account is locked to all your games at once. Two of your games cannot be running at the same time. With retail games, you can install each game on a different computer. The only way to do this with steam is to have a different Steam account for each game. Now this can change if that game sharing feature is enabled.http://store.steampowered.com/news/11436/

Your memory of retail games seems a bit... idealized. Retail games had and continue to have DRM. Online activations, limited installs or at the very least, a disc check which prevents you from running the game on multiple machines at the same time (unless you resort to cracks or emulation). This notion of a DRM-free retail paradise is entirely inaccurate.

I don't see Steam abusing their power either, but here's the problem with a monopoly: the control of the industry is concentrated in the hand of one (Gabe) or a few individuals who can make radical changes on a whim. Gabe might retire, or have a stroke. Will the new people in charge make changes? Start charging a Steam monthly fee of $10? Start stripping out games with less than 1000 concurrent users? In a true competitive market, if a market leader makes a bad or manipulative choice, it's corrected by the market b/c users have choices. But with Steam's dominant position, the switching costs are massive if suddenly Steam decided to screw you. There's almost no way to manage your risk. It's becoming Steam, or nothing.

These things could happen, sure. But they most likely won't. If Gabe dies or Valve sells out and starts making stupid business decisions, people will simply stop using Steam. Remember that Steam is only as big as it is now because publishers, developers and consumers made it that way. There's no reason why they wouldn't do the same for another distribution platform should Steam drop the ball. Steam already has plenty of competitors who would love to take over.

Jerykk wrote on Dec 31, 2013, 18:13:EA and Ubisoft do sell keys outside of their respective platforms (though EA doesn't sell them on Steam).

But do they allow third party developers on Origin to give/sell Origin keys outside of the Origin store?

As far as I understand, developers on Steam are given the ability to freely produce Steam keys that can be given away, sold on their own website, sold on Amazon or the Humble store, used as a Kickstarter reward, etc.

Any other digital distribution store strictly limits the number of promotional keys available.

I think it's great that Steam allows this! I'm just surprised that I've rarely seen this advantage pointed out.

The only games that use Origin/Uplay are EA/Ubisoft's first-party games. Pretty telling, really. Publishers, developers and customers choose to use Steam. Nobody chooses to use Origin or Uplay except the companies that created them.

Also, Alice doesn't require Origin. No game on Steam requires Origin because EA stopped selling games on Steam after they created Origin.

EA and Ubisoft do sell keys outside of their respective platforms (though EA doesn't sell them on Steam). For them, not doing so would be really bad for business since they don't have nearly the market share of Steam. Valve could probably get away with making Steamworks games only available on Steam but they've chosen not to do that because they are a very consumer-centric company. A Steam monopoly would not be the same as a Microsoft monopoly.

jdreyer wrote on Dec 31, 2013, 06:53:@ Jerykk, I agree with pretty much everything you said, but Ladron's got a point: Steam is a defacto monopoly, and that's problematic. A benevolent dictator is still a dictator. I have 270 games on the system, and I love its features, but it's scarily dominant. I spent most of this year avoiding buying games on Steam, instead buying them on Gamefly and Humble. As the year went on, more and more games from those platforms included or required Steam keys. Valve has PC gaming by the balls, and so far they've been gentle. But I'd prefer my balls to be in no one's hands. Keeps me from being locked in, or losing all my marbles if the monopoly sells out or goes belly up. I lost access to a lot of games when D2D sold out to Gamefly. If Steam did that, it would be a nightmare.

That may be true in theory but I haven't really seen it happen with Steam. For all intents and purposes, Steam has had a monopoly for the past few years. The majority of Steam users aren't even aware of sites like GMG or Gamefly. To them, Steam is really the only place to buy PC games. Has that really hurt the industry? No, not really. Even though Steam is by far the most popular distribution platform, there are still plenty of other places to buy PC games, even ones that require Steam. Now, if Valve suddenly declares that all Steamworks games can only be sold on Steam, that would be problematic. But they haven't done that and I see no reason for them to do that. Everything they've ever done has been in favor of the customer (unlike Microsoft's monopolistic habits).

Is Valve a benevolent dictator? Maybe. Is that actually a bad thing? Has there ever been a genuinely benevolent dictator? People assume that dictatorships are inherently bad but that's because dictators have always been (to my knowledge, at least) tyrants who abuse their power. Valve hasn't done that and I don't really see that changing.

Julio wrote on Dec 31, 2013, 08:59:

Slashman wrote on Dec 31, 2013, 07:54:GOG will NEVER be embraced by game devs and publishers, no matter how many experiments CD Projekt Red runs to show that piracy isn't a factor in game sales....Valve didn't put Steam in the position it is in today, the people who buy games did that.

As long as people support Steam over GOG, they are voting with their wallets for DRM. I'm still optimistic that GOG will thrive, and I put my money with them.

It's not quite that simple. GOG doesn't sell any new, non-indie games. So even if you buy every game on GOG, that doesn't really tell publishers anything. The only way to convince publishers to sell their new games on GOG is to buy their new games on GOG. Unfortunately, their new games aren't available on GOG so that's not really an option.

Don't get me wrong, I think GOG is great. However, it is never going to get the same publisher support that Steam does. Hell, it isn't going to get the same consumer support that Steam does either. When given a choice between buying a game on GOG or Steam, 99% of consumers will opt for the Steam version. Why? Because to most people, the Steam version has more benefits than the GOG version.

Luke wrote on Dec 31, 2013, 04:18:There are other ways to play those games than installing this sniffer program , so no you are not right here

I'm not including piracy (or cracks) as options for obvious reasons. Also, to be quite frank, using Steam is more convenient than piracy these days. That's one of the main reasons why I stopped pirating games. Automatic updates and cloud saves are really great. Cracks and cracked patches? Not so great. Not only are they often hit-and-miss in terms of reliability (it's pretty common to see multiple "proper" releases of cracks and cracked patches by competing groups) but if a game gets tons of patches (like Civ 5), it's pretty rare that every patch will get cracked, let alone cracked properly. Steam makes PC gaming so much faster and easier to use.

So... yes, I'm still right.

Ladron3dfx wrote on Dec 31, 2013, 04:26:One digital distribution service should not control the direction of PC gaming and its future. It should not envelop the entirety of PC gaming and hold golden keys to the PC gaming kingdom. That is the future of PC gaming on its current path, 80% market share now and as other services fail the percentage will increase. Each purchase of Steamworks embedded titles is a validation of its dominance, no matter how small or large the purchase. Steam is not PC gaming, it is part of PC gaming. It should never be the PC platform itself.

What you want is pretty irrelevant. What matters is what the majority of people want and the majority of people want Steam. And really, if Steam continues to provide a great service (as made evident by Steam's massive popularity), what's wrong with them controlling the direction of PC gaming? They've already been doing that for years and PC gaming is healthier than it's ever been. Clearly Valve knows what they're doing.

Your argument revolves around principles that seemingly ignore the fact that PC gaming is currently thriving. We're getting more games, we're getting better games and we're getting them at lower prices than ever before. Before Steam, this was definitely not the case. PC gaming was already in decline at retail and publishers were jumping ship to consoles. We were lucky to get ports and even when we did, they were typically half-assed ports because of PC gaming's lack of retail presence. Now almost every game comes out on PC and ports are of much higher quality than they were before.

Your pro-SteamDRM position actually surprises me Jerykk, based on the years of your otherwise thoughtful and more accurate postings.

You do not buy a game from SteamDRM, you rent it. This alone negates any potential pro. You are arbitrarily and with no recourse granted permission to access SteamDRM files. Also, and only recently addressed in an obtuse official response is the ability to treat SteamDRM as optional (read:offline) after an initial and only activation, burdensome or not.

There is no need to SteamDRM any single player, offline file. Yet Gabe Newell, Best Friend of Gaming™, is quite intent on making sure that happens.

This is the gaming future you'll settle for Jerykk? See above.

Obviously the benefits of Steam outweigh the downsides to the majority of consumers, which is why Steam's user base is only growing (see the headline of this thread). I already mentioned the downsides of Steam's DRM. However, most people are willing to accept those downsides because they feel the benefits are more valuable. You're the vocal minority here who is unwilling to compromise. If everyone shared your beliefs, PC gaming would basically be dead because publishers would stop supporting it and indies wouldn't have the exposure that Steam gives them. Need I remind you of the notoriously terrible DRM schemes publishers were resorting to before Steam became popular? Would you rather have those instead? Because those would be your only options if Steam had never been created. Publishers are never going to embrace a DRM-free industry.

Having strong beliefs is fine. However, those beliefs need to account for reality, otherwise they are completely worthless. When you consider the realities of the games industry, Steam really is the best compromise between DRM and beneficial services.

Also, my assertion that most games require third-party software is entirely accurate. Here's a list of publishers that currently use Steamworks for all their new releases:

The only publishers that don't use Steamworks are Ubisoft and EA and that's only because they have their own respective DRM platforms (Uplay and Origin). So basically, your options are limited to indie games (though a growing number are requiring Steamworks too) if you want to avoid installing third-party software.

Capitan wrote on Dec 30, 2013, 16:28:I refuse to play games that require services like Steam. Tell why do I need to have additional software installed just to play? That is so fu***ng wrong!

Welcome to 2013. If you refuse to play any game that requires third-party software, you won't be playing many games. Almost every publisher and developer uses Steamworks now. The two big exceptions use their own distribution platforms (Uplay and Origin).

As for the pros and cons of Steam:

Pros:- Automatic updates.- Automatic installations.- Cloud saves.- Leaderboards.- Friends list functionality (IM, chat, game invites, etc).- Standardized forums.- Steam sales.- Wishlist and automatic sale notifications.- Achievements.- Trading cards (which can be sold for Steam credit).- Ability to download and play your games on any PC.- Workshop support for easy modding.- All your games in one place.

Cons:- Mandatory online activations.- If you lose your Steam account, you lose all your games.- Valve can remove games from your account without even notifying you.

2 of the 3 cons are very unlikely to occur. So with that in mind, the benefits of Steam clearly outweigh the downsides.

FYI, concurrent users only represent the minimum number of copies sold. The total number is always significantly higher. For example, Stanley Parable sold over 100k units in a matter of days but its highest concurrent player count is 4,818. Similarly, DayZ sold over 172k units within a day but its peak concurrent player count is 45,398. Multiplayer games will always have more concurrent players than short single-player games but even then, those numbers aren't representative of total sales.

Jivaro wrote on Dec 30, 2013, 10:37:Anybody have any feedback on "Remember Me" based on actual playing experience? Seems to be a fairly polarizing game judging by the various forums I have been too. Not since Mirror's Edge have I seen so many people disagree about so many basic topics in a single game. I have watched the gameplay videos, I like what I see. I am just concerned that after five minutes I have seen the whole game.

It's a fairly mediocre brawler with mediocre platforming. The setting is cool and the presentation is pretty slick though. The memory remixes are the most interesting part of the game but there are only 4 of them. For $10, the game is worth a look.

jdreyer wrote on Dec 29, 2013, 15:22:Yeah, I'm not sure what to make of those stats. 20m in sales overall feels right, as does $1.2 in total revenue, but only 1.5m in sales on the PC doesn't, given that it has been among the top Steam titles consistently for two years on a weekly basis. That would suggest Steam is doing a lot less business than I thought it was.

Unless those 1.5 million PC players are all doing nothing except downloading every single mod ever made from the nexus, there have to be a LOT more people to be affecting the nexus sites so much. Skyrim has basically forced them to invest $300K (and counting) into new hardware because the Skyrim site alone is murdering their entire infrastructure.

Also, for Steam to make 1.5 billion dollars in revenue and for Skyrim to be in the top 10 consistently for nearly two years, means a lot more people likely bought it than 90 million dollars' worth.

All in all, I'm going to say that the linked site pulled those numbers completely out of their ass in a desperate attempt to not have to admit that Skyrim on the PC outsold the console versions by a wide margin.

Pretty sure that's a load of crap. Valve and publishers generally don't hand out sales figures to random websites. When they "source," they actually mean "we got a few pieces of publicly accessible information and then extrapolated estimates based on numerous half-baked assumptions." VGChartz does that, which is why their numbers are bullshit. What's even more ridiculous is that they give specific numbers per platform AND region, as if they would ever have access to that amount of data.

So again, unless a site cites a specific source (and provides a link to said source), it's not worth even a grain of salt.

jdreyer wrote on Dec 29, 2013, 15:16:Deadlight looks kinda cool. On the one hand, I love the look, and the other it looks like just a pretty version of one of those flash side-scrolling zombie games.

Anyone play it?

It plays like 2D Prince of Persia + Last of Us. You traverse the environment and solve basic platforming puzzles while dealing with zombies using distractions and/or traps. It's a cool game, though the writing leaves something to be desired. Still, it's worth picking up for $3.